Better preparation ensures fewer casualties in Bangla cyclone

A massive cyclone which hit the southeastern coast of Bangladesh on Monday found the low-lying country better prepared to face it.

Officials in the prime minister's office said on Tuesday that only 27 people have been confirmed dead from the worst-hit areas of Chittagong and Cox's Bazar, a far cry from the 139,000 dead in a cyclone in 1991.The officials said they could not confirm early media reports that hundreds of people were killed when winds at over 200 km per hour and high tidal waves hit the country.

Local officials and relief agencies put up different figures but an accurate assessment of the damage may take days since communication links with the hundreds of islands dotting the coastal waters have snapped, the officials said.

Premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who cancelled a state visit to Spain, travelled on Tuesday to the affected areas to assess the damage first hand.

But initial reports suggest that Bangladesh's satellite-based early warning system, together with an extensive coastal network of storm shelters, may have saved tens of thousands of lives. About 30,000 Red Cross volunteers, along with 7,000 army, navy and civil helpers had evacuated a million people to safety, many of them into sturdy cyclone shelters.

The cyclone, and tidal surges, some nearly four metres high, which hit the 300 km coastal stretch between Chittagong and Cox's Bazar to its south, swamped the islands and ravaged coastal areas, damaging hundreds of thousands of hectares of paddy farms. But nearly half a million people in these areas were moved in time from their mud and thatch homes to the shelters, put up Bangladesh's worst cyclone ever in 1991.

Cyclones are an annual feature, coming up from the Bay of Bengal before the monsoons, raining destruction on about 20 million inhabitants of Bangladesh's coastal areas. The sea waves, sometimes up to, 10 feet tall, washed away an entire squadron of the Bangladeshi air force fighter jets in Chittagong in 1991.

Cyclone warning systems put up after this one ensured only 233 people dead in May 1994 when a huge twister slammed into eastern Bangladesh with wind speeds of 240 km per hour. Hundreds of thousands of people living along the coast and on the low-lying islands, had heeded hourly storm warnings over radio and television, to head for shelter.

Built by government and voluntary organisations, the nearly 3,000 concrete cyclone shelters stand on stilts as protection against the tidal waves during a cyclone. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and some western nations have funded the shelters.

These include 2,500 small shelters, each capable of housing 50 to 60 people. Each of the 365 big shelters gives refuge to more than 1,000 people. In normal times, the shelters double up as schools.

As soon as a cyclone alert is issued, authorities start distributing emergency supplies of food and water to allow families in vulnerable areas to stock up.

Bangladesh has also built hundreds of miles of embankments along cyclone-prone region to minimise the damage caused by the cyclonic tidal surges. Sturdy coconut trees along the coastline act as wind breakers.

Cyclone relief operations have improved ever since the defence forces were involved. Before their involvement, there were frequent complaints of misappropriation of funds and relief material.